Holiday reading

Hey friends – hope you’re enjoying the holidays and time off. It’s eerily quiet here in San Francisco, so I’m taking the time to send this out (it’s been sitting for some time), catch up after a busy few weeks, and clear through my backlog of articles, books, podcasts, rss, etc.

You know those hotel press conferences we always see after plane crashes or other tragedies? This is a fascinating dive into the backstory of how those logistics (and more significantly, recovery efforts) all come together through a small company called Kenyon.

It’s a little bit of a grim topic, but makes you appreciate the expertise, process, and finesse that goes into things like this.

Speaking of yet another – as if we needed yet another article telling us what makes high performing teams at Google function.

Well, here it is. And the answer is straightforward – stop optimizing for every tiny metric and just be a normal, caring, social human. Relationships, small talk, and trust are what build strong teams.

A story about the Code for America team behind CalFresh (CA’s food stamp program). Turns out the government is really not good at computer. Along those lines, please send me your fax number to make sure you get the next issue of this newsletter.

Throughout the read I was reminded of The Atlantic piece from a year ago about the team that rebuilt Healthcare.gov and ultimately birthed 18F and the US Digital Service.

Just get up on your chair (don’t fall!), take an aerial photo of your granola and latte, get a few hundred thousand followers, and then hire an agency to feed you lifestyle photos so that you don’t have to risk falling off your chair anymore.